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ADOLPH MAEIX. 



T> Ui-o^ 4. '■ 



Reprinted from 

Publications of the 

Ambbican Jewish Histobical Sociktt, 

No. 28, 1922. 



X 



ADOLPH MAEIX. 

Adolph Marix, whose investigations following the sinking 
of the Maine in Havana harbor, Cuba, February 15, 1898, 
directly caused the declaration of war with Spain, was born 
in Dresden, Saxony, May 10, 1848. He was brought to this 
country in infancy when his parents, Dr. Henry and Frederica 
Marix, emigrated for political reasons, the family settling in 
Iowa. The father was a professor of languages in Eussia and 
after coming to this country was employed in the State and 
Treasury Departments of the Government as a translator of 
languages. Dr. Marix made a specialty of translating articles 
into English from continental newspapers for the information 
of President Lincoln during the Civil War, and his acquaint- 
ance with Lincoln enabled him to obtain the appointment of 
his son to the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, 
Md., in the fall of 1864. Young Marix graduated from the 
Academy with the class of 1868, at the age of twenty. His 
advancement in the Navy followed rapidly. In 1869 he was 
promoted to the rank of ensign and in the following year was 
assigned to special duty on the U. S. .8. Congress, in connec- 
tion with a Polar expedition. The same year he became 
master and two years later lieutenant, after which he was 
assigned to the office of the Judge-Advocate-General, there 
gaining the experience that helped him later in 1898 when 
he became Judge Advocate of the Maine disaster Board of 
Inquiry. In 1893 he was promoted again and assigned to 
the Maine, when she was one of the new ships which were 
the pride of the navy, becoming her first executive officer. He 
served with the ill-fated battleship from the time she was 
first put in commission until January, 1898, just a few weeks 
before she was blown up in Havana harbor. In the same year 
he was put in command of the U. 8. S. Scorpion, and pro- 
moted to the rank of commander. During the Spanish- 
American War he was advanced two numbers by an Act of 



3 



Congress for eminent and conspicuous conduct in battle. He 
was supervisor of naval auxiliaries and president of the board 
which tried various types of submarines^ selecting the one 
adopted by the Kavy Department, and then was chairman of 
the Lighthouse Board until his retirement for age. On July 
4, 1908, he was appointed Eear Admiral by President Taft, 
one of his close friends, a friendship which was cemented 
while he was a naval attache at the Philippine Islands at the 
time when Mr, Taft was Governor-General. When Com- 
mander Marix was promoted to the rank of Eear Admiral he 
became the first Jew of that rank, practically the highest in 
the United States Navy. In April, 1910, on attaining the age 
of sixty- two years Admiral Marix was retired from active 
service under the provisions of an Act of Congress. In his 
career of forty-five years in the Navy twenty-four years were 
spent upon the sea. 

Admiral Marix was recognized as the foremost expert in 
the United States Navy on all matters relating to naval and 
maritime law. He had been appointed on numerous occasions 
to positions requiring tact and ability and was considered an 
officer of great force, character and individuality, a rigid 
disciplinarian, a man of quick decision, and his career was 
one of the most brilliant in the naval service. 

In private life his manner of speech was quiet, deliberate 
and unmarked by haste or heat. He was a member of the 
Army and Navy Club of Washington and a corresponding 
member of the American Jewish Historical Society, and after 
his retirement manifested a considerable interest in Jewish 
communal affairs, and also in the welfare of the " black Jews " 
known as Falashas, living in the mountainous regions of 
Abyssinia. 

Admiral Marix died on July 11, 1919, in Gloucester, ]\Iass., 
at the age of seventy-one and his remains are interred in the 
National Cemetery at Arlington, Va. 

Mahk J. Katz. 



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